We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32467495.
People talk about their opinion as if it was some static thing that was always like this and will always be. Completely unaware how their own opinion evolved throughout their life and might evolve if they allow too. Also completely unaware of how irrelevant their opinion is, except for the consequences that follow from acting according to it.
"[...] But that's just my opinion. [...]", as if anybody should care. And, as if protecting their world view from the debate that might rip it apart. As if that'd be a painful and scary experience. (No even talking about how people use that sentence in order to spread fear, anger or hatred.) As if they'd need to put their whole life into question if they'd changed some if their opinions.
Often I think in the past there were people that lived according to this wisdom. I am not sure to what extend that's true, but I do not often meet such people now. Even in intelectual spheres, where some people even might talk about wisdom like this it often feels hollow to me if they do.
You may find it terrible, but I actually believe in objective reality. I believe I know good and evil when I see them... and I can do this without access to the supernatural or recourse to religion. I believe in better and worse outcomes for individuals and for societies. I believe some societies are better than others, because I've lived in 34 countries over 20 years and I can make honest comparisons about the pros and cons of each. Nowhere is perfect, but some actually are better -- objectively, if you believe that being expressive and embracing diversity and freedom of thought is a good thing. Personally I think good==complexity and evil==destruction, and so anything that kills life is destroying complexity that the universe demands, so is necessarily a kind of evil.
The Achilles heel of people younger than me is that they think opinions on the internet actually mean something... and the younger they are the less they seem to believe in the objective truth of the world. Call it the corrupting influence of Instagram, I guess. But I think it's due for a major backlash, because no one wants to have their morals dictated to them that way... and the objective world remains. It always remains. True things are true, false are false; evil is hypocrisy, and it's rampant. It is not a subjective, religious pronouncement.. it's a thing that is fucking right there.
2+2=4
If you dig deep, you’ll find that pride is the root of virtually every evil.
I’m only pointing this out because of the perception of Christianity that you mention in your post. There’s a very big difference between what Reddit claims is Christian behavior and what the Bible actually claims.
https://www.readnotmisled.org/p/the-is-it-christian-litmus-t...
I think we live in the tension between being big and being small in the world. If you're big and you have bad judgement, you'll cause more harm than if you're small and have bad judgement. But being small is also an act of self abandonment. At its extreme, its no life at all.
Far too many people I know have no idea how to take up space with the confidence that they have something valuable to add to the world. They have important ideas - but don't back themselves and don't pursue them. We're all worse off when that happens.
Whats the point in learning ethics if you keep yourself powerless anyway?
I think cowardice and timidity are much bigger problems in modern society than pride.